🗞 What's New: Quickly test hundreds of product ideas

How can you test hundreds of product ideas quickly?

• "API arbitrage." Build the logic for user authentication, API credits, and payments, and forward the functionality to another API provider.
• A guru behind viral food trends shares his top tip on drawing people in: Differentiate through design.
• $1M ARR in 7 months. Alex Szczurek used public roasts to showcase her design skills, acquire clients, and grow her business.

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from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

As a founder, you want to test, test, test. Here's an approach to testing (potentially) hundreds of products in a relatively short time, using something that I call "API arbitrage."

API products make money

I've been analyzing the Indie Hackers stories database and product database over the past week, and I've noticed that there are many successful API-based products. A few examples:

• GeoCode ($10K per month): A geoparsing API.

• Semantria ($150K per month, then sold): A sentiment analysis API.

• Bannerbear ($10K+ per month): An API to generate social media visuals, banners, etc.

• EmailEngine ($9.7K per month): An email client you can integrate into an app via an API.

• APITemplate ($2K per month): An API to generate PDFs and images from reusable templates.

• SerpDog ($1K per month): An API to access Google search data.

Whew! That's a pretty long list of software businesses providing API access to some functionality.

Want to create your own API product?

Don't spend months building out the functionality for it.

Instead of building the API, outsource the functionality to another API at the start. If you start making money, you can then build your own version of the API.

If you fail, move on to something else.

APIs = white label

Ever heard of "white label" software? This is usually a SaaS product with a built-in functionality; you can sell the software as your own.

API products are "white label" by default. An API provider doesn't need to add special functionality to their software, because most of the time they return raw data.

API products usually have URL endpoints that you can call. You call the URL with some input, and you get some output as a result (usually a JSON file).

Users have no idea what's going on in the background. You could be implementing your own functionality, forwarding the call to another API service (aka API arbitrage), etc.

Why API arbitrage?

API arbitrage allows you to test a lot of niches in a relatively short time.

All you need to build is the logic for user authentication, API credits, and payments, and have a place to forward the functionality to another API provider.

With architecture like this, you could potentially create hundreds of different API products that you can test.

Another advantage of this approach is that you can experiment with pricing. Try setting the price of your API a bit higher or lower, and note the results. Or, try changing the pricing model altogether.

For example, some APIs might only provide "packages" that users can buy, where each package has a pre-defined number of API credits. If that's the case, you could experiment with a pay-as-you-go package. If most companies have pay-as-you-go packages, you could experiment with prepaid packages.

Finding APIs

This post has a good list of API directories, and this Github repository has a huge list of public APIs.

If you want to start with what's popular, check out this RapidAPI post.

Part two of this post will focus on how to market your API!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trendy Software Ideas for more.

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from The Hustle newsletter

Graza. Fishwife. Brightland. If you've never heard of them, just walk into a local specialty store. You're guaranteed to spot some of these brands, with packaging so aesthetically pleasing they make you feel like you're walking inside an Instagram feed.

Marked by bright colors, bold fonts, and creative illustrations, this style of packaging is now moving beyond specialty stores and into big retail aisles.

*Graza is olive oil that comes in a squeeze bottle. Source: GoPuff

Mike McVicar cofounded Gander, the Brooklyn-based design studio behind Graza, Magic Spoon, and a dozen other viral brands.

We asked him about the latest trends in packaging design!

The design pendulum

Back in the late '90s and early 2000s, good design wasn't a priority for consumer packaged goods (CPG).

Packages with call-outs and stickers that screamed "33% less fat!" were the mainstream. When the 2010s rolled around, branding design went to the other extreme: The blanding trend.

Packages became minimalistic and generic, often featuring sans serif fonts and pastel colors.

Now, with the rise of social shopping, many brands are catering to the dopamine-charged, color-forward Instagram aesthetic.

It's also a renaissance of the Y2K style, with bold colors and playful textures. From Jell-O to 7UP, companies are redesigning to dial up the dopamine, and creating a visual identity that spreads fun and joy.

Differentiate brands through design

Back in 2015, Gander worked on the rebranding for Banza, a pasta made from chickpeas.

Contrary to the popular style on the pasta aisle back then (think Barilla's simplistic blue packaging), Gander went for a bright, expressive style:

*Source: Gander

Banza was one of the early brands to make a bold statement with packaging, which impacted the food industry as a whole. It went from anonymity to one of the top pasta brands in the US. It's now in 25K retail locations nationally, including Target, Walmart, and Costco.

Since then, Gander's helped many other CPG brands get on big retail shelves. Here are Mike's tips on standing out through design:

• Start with your story and history as a brand, instead of blindly following trends.
• Understand who your customer is, what kind of world they live in aesthetically, and what's pleasing to them.
• Look at your competition, and note which opportunities align with your product and company that others aren't doing yet.

What else is trending in CPG design?

Mike is excited about one particular trend: The inclusion of "next-level delicious food photography" on packages.

*The "bleh" to "yum" transformation. Source: AdWeek

A decade ago, it wasn't mainstream to put high-quality food photography on packages, but the tide has shifted.

Influenced by social media, younger consumers prefer packaging that actually stirs up their appetite, and major food brands are trying to make their products look extra tasty.

Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

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Check out Trendy Software Ideas to discover more software ideas inspired by recent news.

by Stephen Flanders

Over the last decade, Alex Szczurek has mastered coding, design, and customer experience. It all culminated in the launch of Baked Design, the product design agency for startups that she and her cofounder grew to $1M in ARR in just seven months. Here's her story.

Always learning

I started in 2014 as a frontend developer, then later transitioned to UX and CX.

In 2020, I was working with a software house that wanted to somehow productize design services. Their biggest pain point was spending a lot of time on workshops, shaping a roadmap, and estimation, whereas the sales specialist always wanted a fixed price to sell easily.

It's not that easy, though. Each project requires a different approach, so I proposed a monthly fixed price and an estimation of how long it might take. It didn't work out.

Then, I changed jobs, and started to dive more into the subscription model. The key is that a subscription model shouldn't be complicated. The most important part is to save time and money on the onboarding!

The early struggle

I was slowly burning out at my 9-5. In February 2023, I found the #buildinpublic community.

Nick was doing public design roasts at the time. We started talking over X, DMing about life, dogs, design, etc. At some point, I roasted his roast, and really enjoyed the process. So, I started doing more roasts, trying to also attach what I know well: UX.

When we first started Baked Design, we targeted indie hackers. Our strategy was simple: We'd do a public roast. After the roast, other people reached out to us, or the roasted person wanted the full roast of their landing page. This was great because we were providing value to the community, while also showcasing our skills.

In just four months, we designed over 70 websites. We started at $50, and eventually worked our way up to $150. Now, our top-selling plan is $6,317 per month. I always like ending my pricing with seven or nine, because it makes people feel like they're getting a discount.

By building in public and doing hundreds of design roasts, we were really starting to build a name for ourselves. Our breakthrough moment came when someone approached us looking for an app design.

So, I focused on building the website for Baked, spending a ton of time on it. I pushed it live, then two weeks later, we closed our first subscription.

A unique cofounder relationship

Nick and I met on X, as I mentioned above. At some point, we realized that our skills really complemented each other. I'm more of an expert in UX, and he's a product designer and marketing magician.

We've never met IRL, live in different time zones, and don't talk much. However, I still think we have a pretty close relationship. We trust that we'll each get our work done, and remained focused on the same goal.

Advice for indie hackers

If you have a good client, do your best to keep them. If you have a problematic client, issue a refund.

Find your pace. Everyone needs to find their way to success. There is no recipe. You need to experiment, lose, and win.

There is no substitute for hard work, but don't forget about your mental wellbeing. Burnout hits hard!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Darko, Cyan Zhong, and Stephen Flanders for contributing posts. —Channing